I promote veganism and animal rights because I don't want the animals to suffer. In my opinion it makes no difference why somebody is suffering. So some time ago I started thinking about wild living animals. Their suffering
is something that seems almost completely ignored or forgotten by most animal rights activists. In my opinion it is one of the most important concerns. For a simple reason: there are much much more animals in the wild than in factory farms.
And nature is cruel. Animals in the wild suffer from many things like predation, disease, parasites, injuries, cold, starvation, stress and more. Many animals give birth to hundreds or thousands of offspring hoping a few of them live long enough to grow up fully.
So what could be done to help them? Helping farm animals is relatively easy, go vegan and convince others of doing the same. But nature is very complex and very few people care about the suffering of wild living animals. So I think the best thing we can do today is to promote the idea that they also need our help (at least within the animal movement) and that helping them also belongs to animal rights. And then scientists, ecologists, biologists and other people will deal with that question and find the answers.
Our ethics concerning humans and human rights do not end with the abolition of slavery, so why should our ethics concerning animals?
'Many humans look at nature from an aesthetic perspective and think in terms
of biodiversity and the health of ecosystems, but forget that the animals that
inhabit these ecosystems are individuals and have their own needs. Disease,
starvation, predation, ostracism, and sexual frustration are endemic in so-called
healthy ecosystems. The great taboo in the animal rights movement is that
most suffering is due to natural causes.'
- Albert, in Nick Bostrom's "Golden"